Editor's Note: Cole Quinnell joined the staff of HOT ROD in 1990, a year ahead of me. I well remember his beat '66 Chevelle at the time, moving it from his apartment to a house and later cross-country to Detroit when he left the mag. When Cole completed a long-awaited rebuild last year, I asked him to write this first-person account of his life with the car, up through the makeover. - DF

I'm writing this from the driver seat of the '66 Chevelle you see here. There's no better place from which to share the story. I've spent the last 25 years driving this car to school and work, racing it regularly, and making change after change to it. This car has been with me through some of my best points in life and some of my worst.

This story really begins in 1986 in Las Cruces, New Mexico. A guy named Mike Lane owned the Chevelle, and he was trying to build a decent driver out of it. He had rescued it from a previous owner, who threatened to turn it into a dirt-track racer if Mike didn't buy it. Mike and I met through street racing and mutual friends, and I helped him work on the car when I could. After swapping in several used automatic transmissions, a couple of small-block engines, and adding gallons of body filler and primer, the car started to take on a desirable shape.

1/22In the late '80s, this Chevelle was little more than a frame and a body. Over the next 25 years, it would become so much more.

A quick over-correction on a dirt road brought that progress to a halt. The passenger-side quarter-panel connected with a concrete barrier, ripping and crushing the sheetmetal as well as Mike's ambition to continue working on the car. In the weeks that followed, he found another Chevelle frame with an empty body shell and planned to transfer parts from the old car. This was shortly after HOT ROD had done the original "Caddy Hack" story (Feb. '87), inspiring us to make one last trip to the street drags as we were stripping the Chevelle. We ditched anything not absolutely necessary for forward acceleration. We removed so much weight that traction was an issue, so we strapped a 350 engine block to the trunk latch support. Based on comparison with our usual competitors, we picked up more than a second in the quarter-mile!

After that, Mike removed the last parts and was going to send what was left of the old Chevelle to the salvage yard. I convinced him to give it to me instead, cementing my passion for Chevelles. My parents weren't sure what to say when the backyard was filled with this hulk consisting of little more than framerails, a roof, floor, and quarter-panels. I found two parts cars and began swapping the best pieces onto mine.

2/22Here's the same car that's seen in the previous spread, finished in early 2012. The car severed its street-racing roots and took on a Pro Touring style with a nod to the past and to the simplicity of an early A-body with a stick and V8 and little else.

One of the parts cars was a four-door and the other was a 300 model, which made for an interesting collection of parts. I used plenty of body filler and fiberglass screen to fill the gash in the quarter-panel. I did my best to smooth the rest of the eclectic collection of sheetmetal and shot the whole thing in primer gray. I built a 327 with a lumpy cam and an Edelbrock Scorpion single-plane intake. I scrounged up a Saginaw four-speed and an open 3.08-geared 10-bolt. It wasn't particularly nice, but it was a more-or-less complete car, and it was driveable.

I pursued quicker quarter-mile times with practically no budget, which led me to install 4.88 gears and weld up the stock differential. I also hung a set of ladder bars. The car was definitely quicker, but part of the joy of driving it was gone, too-my first lesson in undesirable compromises.

In 1990, I got the opportunity of a lifetime: a job offer at HOT ROD magazine. In short order, I needed to pack up my life and move to Los Angeles. My brother, Kyle, did a quick paintjob to make the Chevelle more presentable. I cut the ladder-bar mounts off the frame and swapped in a 3.08-geared 10-bolt axle to make the 800-mile trek to my new career. Over the next 12 years, I drove my Chevelle to work on the crowded LA freeways and raced it at Los Angeles County Raceway. I installed two engines and blew up two four-speed transmissions. The same 10-bolt lived until I took the car apart most recently for a complete rebuild.

This Chevelle was my mechanical best friend. Always there for me, always ready to go for a drive, whether to work or play or for a cross-country adventure.

The next phase in the car's life was not all that good. I moved on from the publishing world to work in Detroit for Chrysler. During that time, my four-wheeled toys stayed locked up in storage, waiting for me to have more time to spend with them. For the Chevelle, that moment came in 2010. The rust that was buried under layers of body filler was starting to show through, and I wanted to have the paint and bodywork done professionally. That's when I met the father-and-son team of Tony and TJ Grzelakowski. They had two businesses: Advanced Body & Color, which does show-quality paint, and ABC Performance, which has a line of performance parts for Chevelles.

9/22I got really good at swinging the LS3 in and out of the perfectly painted engine bay while making modifications to the oil pan for steering-linkage clearance. The Holley pan was made for ’68–’72 Chevelles, which have more clearance than the early cars.

After tossing ideas back and forth with Tony over that summer, I launched into a frame-off rebuild of the car. I was enamored with the idea of Pro Touring, so the goal was to build a modern version of a late-'60s SCCA Trans-Am racer-a little bit of Smokey Yunick's Chevelle mixed with touches found in the current crop of Pro Touring cars. The sheetmetal would be smoothed and cleaned of all extraneous trim, letting the classic lines of a '66 Chevelle stand out. It would sit as low as possible while fitting maximum tires in the wheelwells. The wheels would be a classic five-spoke design with sandblasted centers. I wanted the car to look simple, something that just about anyone interested in muscle cars could relate to. I had Darrell Mayabb pen an illustration that put the combination of my and Tony's ideas into a single visual roadmap.

With more than a little trepidation over taking apart a car that had been my mechanical best friend in this exact form for so long, I spent a weekend removing every part I had installed over the past 20-plus years. I laughed more than once remembering all times I had pulled engines, dropped trannies to change clutches, and left behind things I meant to go back and fix later. When I finished taking it apart, what was left was the same set of framerails, roof, floor and quarter-panels that Mike had given to me so long ago. I hauled all of the sheetmetal and the frame to Strip-It-All, where it was blasted of all past sins. The raw parts were then delivered to Advanced Body & Color, where Tony and TJ went to work installing a host of new sheetmetal from C.A.R.S. Inc. and National Parts Depot.

10/22These are the notches required to clear the inner tie rods. While the pan was off, Tony and I also made a trap-door baffle to sit in the sump area for better oil control.

In addition to replacing sheetmetal and making the gaps better than any stock Chevelle ever was, Tony and TJ shaved the bumper bolts, filled the huge rectangular openings in the stock front bumper, and shaved the windshield wipers from the cowl (the car hasn’t had working windshield wipers the entire time I’ve owned it, so why start now?). Tony welded together two repop grilles to create one continuous design across the front of the car. There’s a lot of OE trim missing from the car’s exterior, which escapes most people’s notice, but it’s often what’s not there that makes one car look better than another.

14/22With the wheel lips right at the top of the fender opening, the car looks low and clean. It's usually only those following me on the road or track who notice that the car is mini-tubbed, sitting on 335/30ZR18 BFGoodrich g-Force T/A KDW tires.

With the body perfect, Tony laid down coat after coat of a custom PPG blue that looks as good under florescent lighting as it does in broad daylight. The paint was done on New Year’s Eve, just four months after the car was dropped off at Advanced Body & Color. We celebrated briefly. Then it was on to the chassis and ’cage.

We decided we could build a top-performing chassis using the stock frame and components Tony makes through ABC Performance. The key was increasing overall stiffness, so Tony started by welding in one of his frame-boxing kits, which use CNC-laser-cut plates to turn the open-C-channel framerails into boxed sections, making the chassis four times stiffer than stock. He also installed his mini-tub frame kit, moving the rear framerails inboard to make room for 2-inch-wider meats. The frame was coated in Eastwood Satin Extreme Chassis Black.

15/22I love driving to an event, unloading the trunk, adjusting the shock settings, and hitting the track! Among the pro drivers, I’m usually mid-pack, which I’m completely satisfied with. During open-track days, I take evil joy in passing owners of brand-new Corvettes and even the occasional Viper.

The body was mated to the chassis using ABC Performance solid body mounts. Even though an automaker will spend months figuring out the right durometer hardness for body bushings for optimum ride quality, I don’t think most hot rodders can tell the differences between rubber, polyurethane, and solid mounts, given all of the vibration our cars can produce. However, the additional stiffness gained through solidly tying the body to the frame is a difference you’ll feel at the track. The addition of a ’cage welded to the body and frame further shortens the argument. Speaking of ’cages, Tony bent and welded one that connects all the key suspension points on the chassis. He also tucked it as far out of the way as possible to minimize the hassle of living with a ’cage in a street car.

16/22I had a blast in 2012, hitting as many road courses and autocrosses as I could. The car ended up weighing 3,736 with me behind the wheel, with a 52/48 percent front/rear weight bias. The all-aluminum engine certainly helped with that.

The stiffened chassis became the foundation for Tony’s complete front and rear bolt-on suspension. The front uses adjustable upper control arms, eliminating the need for alignment shims and increasing clearance at the headers. The shorter upper A-arm and taller spindle reverse the camber curve when cornering to keep the tire tread flat on the ground for excellent handling. Tony also installed a 11⁄8-inch splined sway bar with adjustable end links so the effect of the bar can be tuned for various tracks. The rear suspension uses ABC Performance upper and lower control arms as well as chassis braces to strengthen the factory control-arm mounts. The upper arms are adjustable to make setting the pinion angle easy. We used Viking Performance double-adjustable coilovers at all four corners. This let me get a really low stance without giving up ride quality or handing capability.

When it came to the brakes, I mixed traditional and non-traditional thinking. I went mainstream with the bigger-is-better philosophy, choosing Baer 14-inch rotors for the front and 13-inch in the rear with six-piston calipers at all four corners. I broke tradition by skipping the power-booster, instead using a 11⁄8-inch bore, cast-iron master cylinder from CPP. I don’t like the disconnected feeling that often comes with a vacuum brake booster, and this particular unit retained a muscle-car look underhood. Admittedly, I have to really stand on the brakes when coming into a corner hot, but for regular street driving, it’s very natural feeling.

In between self-taught lessons on installing the Chevrolet Performance 6.2L LS3 engine, I worked on assembling the interior, wiring everything with a Painless Performance harness, installing the Flex-a-lite aluminum radiator and electric fan, and fiddling with hundreds of other items. Everything adds up in time. For example, it’s easy to gloss over the fact that installing a Flaming River master on/off switch will take a few hours to do cleanly. And to hide an MSD ignition controller under the dash might require disassembling the wiring harness plugs to route the wires through a reasonably sized hole.

Several friends helped during this 13-month total makeover. Chris Kill spent many evenings and weekends doing whatever was needed, including bending all of the brake lines and plumbing a Hurst roll control that I have yet to use. Fellow Chevelle enthusiast Aaron Oberle installed most of the FAST EZ-EFI fuel injection. Tony and TJ came over several times to install the bumpers and frontend trim, and they helped hoist the Tremec transmission in and out a few times as I sorted out the clutch components.

20/22Charlie Thurman at Superior Radiator machined flat caps for the Billet Specialties Mag G wheels for a late-’60s look. The front tires are 265/35ZR18 BFGoodrich while the Baer brake setup includes 14-inch rotors and six-piston calipers.

I was nervous when it came time to fire up the Chevelle and drive it for the first time in its new form. I had driven the previous version for 15 years. I knew every sound and recognized every feeling transmitted through the car. This was the same car, yet it was completely different. The apprehension didn’t last long, as I grew accustomed to having loads of power on tap and handling that’s surprised more than a few owners of late-model Camaros, Mustangs, and Corvettes at open-track days. Even though the car feels much different than it did before, I look forward to decades of cross-country drives, racing, and generally getting to know this new version of my old friend.

What I'd Do Differently

First, a Positive: I'm very happy that I had top-quality paint and bodywork done. The car looks outstanding, and I don't have to make any apologies when I park in front of someone's house. I also don't have people asking to buy the car anymore, thinking they can steal it for $3,000.

Pedals: Instead of using stock pedals, I'd definitely mount a Tilton or Wilwood swinging pedal assembly with integrated clutch and brake master cylinders under the dash. The stock brake-pedal ratio is awful, and I'm sure that I'm not getting all of power I could from the Baer brakes. Aftermarket pedals also would have also eased the challenge of converting the mechanical clutch linkage to hydraulic. Naturally, the difficulty would be fitting the new pedal assembly under the dash, but with the car completely taken apart, this probably would have been just as easy as the work I did adapting to the stock pedals. Finally, this would have removed the last components from the firewall for an even cleaner look.

Trick Plating: I'd skip the cobalt nickel-plating on the bumpers and trim. It created the desired look of contrasting a dark color with the bright-blue paint while retaining the reflective quality of chrome, but the dark layer is paper thin, and in less than a year, it has worn through. The car would have a completely timeless appearance if I had these parts chromed instead. That's important for a car I plan on keeping and not redoing for a long, long time.

Cooler Steering: I learned at my first road race that I desperately needed a power-steering cooler. The fluid reservoir was 230 degrees F after 15 minutes on track! I installed a Flex-a-lite cooler and dropped the temperature to 170 degrees at the next event.

Coils vs. Coilovers: The last thing I found that needed changing was the coil springs. The first set of conventional coil springs sagged inconsistently, requiring some funky adjustments to level the car out. This also made me question their true spring rates. I swapped out the coils for Viking Performance double-adjustable shock and high-travel and high-tensile steel springs.

LS Swap: It's still a tough call on the LS swap versus a conventional small-block. I would probably still choose this engine again, but I'd be much better prepared mentally and financially for what it would take to install it.

Rollcage: The 'cage is the last one that I'm not sure about. There's no arguing that it adds significant rigidity to the chassis and is a smart decision for any car that goes on the racetrack. And Tony did a great job tucking it out of the way as much as possible. But a 'cage is a 'cage, which means access behind the front seats is next to impossible for an adult, and you deal with the bars every time you get in and out of the car.